1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a recording element substrate, a recording head equipped with the same, and a recording apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
The recording element substrate includes a shift register and a latch circuit in order to drive a recording element. An area of a circuit provided in the recording element substrate has been enlarging due to an increase in a number of recording elements and complexity of control. A semiconductor wafer is used to manufacture the recording element substrate. In order to reduce costs of the recoding element substrate, an area of the recording element substrate needs to be reduced.
For example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2008-030444 discusses a recording element substrate. As illustrated in FIG. 10, the recording element substrate includes a plurality of latch circuits, driving circuits, and decoders sequentially arranged on both sides of a shift register. This circuit latches data input to the shift register with the plurality of latch circuits based on individually prepared latch signals.
FIG. 9 illustrates timing of latch signals. As illustrated in FIG. 9, latch signals LT1, LT2, LT3, and LT4 corresponding to the respective latch circuits are sequentially input. The latch circuits corresponding to the latch signals latch the data of the shift register. Thus, as illustrated in FIG. 10, the recording element substrate includes terminals to which the latch signals LT1, LT2, LT3, and LT4 are input.
By sharing the shift register, a circuit size of the recording element substrate can be reduced. However, a number of terminals to which signals are input cannot be reduced.